"So far, when things have happened, they've happened in a big way," observed Judah Cohen, the principal scientist and director of Seasonal Forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), a division of Verisk Climate, in Lexington.

Cohen and his team look for signals in the atmosphere to forecast how our winter will play out.

And while the epic mess in Buffalo is noteworthy, Cohen's real focus is on another part of the world -- Siberia.

"If you have more snow cover in Siberia in the month of October, it's colder really across the whole northern hemisphere, but particularly in the eastern U.S.," he explained.

This past October, the snow cover in Siberia was the second highest on record.

"When you have a lot of snow cover, you build this dome of really cold dense air," Cohen said.

That dome starts to push the polar vortex southward, ultimately forcing frigid air into the U.S. and even bending the jet stream.